


Klaus Hargreeves' Not-So-Simple Guide To Parenting

by batcavemasquerade



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Can I Not Write Normal Things, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Crack, Klaus is clean, M/M, Middle School, Other, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pseudo-Parenting, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Soccer Mom Klaus Hargreeves, Time Travel, fuck that guy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batcavemasquerade/pseuds/batcavemasquerade
Summary: When the Hargreeves siblings time-travel back to 2003 things go wrong, as they do, and Klaus is there to pick up the pieces and care for his siblings. His approach might be a bit hands-on, and he might be the weirdest brother ever, but a little lovin' and some good ol' TLC can fix a lot of things.AKA: Five fucks up the equations for the umpteenth time, Klaus shows up to a conference in drag, and Sir Reginald Douchewad is given the finger.





	1. A Father, Adoption Does Not Make

**Author's Note:**

> This lowkey started in the fifth chapter of How The Hollyhocks Bloom when I got a little too into the joke of Klaus being a soccer mom in another life -- and thus this was born!! 
> 
> Special thanks to TwentyOneJedi011 for giving me the energy to actually do this, and for the existence of Carol

As Wuthering Secondary’s reigning soccer mom, Klaus had a tight and neat schedule. Not that he followed it, mind you, but he scheduled everything nonetheless. He had soccer games, football games, chess tournaments, the whole shebang programmed in his phone with the most obnoxious ringtones he could think of -- Ice Ice Baby, Barbie Girl, even Pussy by Lords of Acid, though that was more of a guilty pleasure than anything. He could forget things and lose track of the days but he never, and he stressed the never, would ever miss something important.

After their trip to the past the group of siblings were subjected to yet another one of Five's numerous mathematical errors -- this one leaving all of the siblings in their thirteen year old bodies excepting for Klaus, which he assumed had something to do with his unsanctioned trip to Vietnam. Their memories were all shot and scrambled to hell but they were all in one piece, thank God. He took the opportunity for change by the nuts and, in no uncertain terms, lay down the law in front of his adoptive father, God, and everybody.

The conversation had gone pretty well, honestly. They’d arrived back at the manor on a Tuesday afternoon -- meatloaf night, as per usual -- one adult and six very confused children clutching to each other, and Klaus had screamed himself raw at the man they’d once looked to as a parent. 

“Number Four, I order you to get yourself together at once!”

“Or what, huh? What are you gonna do, pops, lock me in a mausoleum? Beat me with that cane of yours? Flush all of my drugs down the toilet and make me eat soap? What could you possibly do to me that would make me decide to let this go?”

“I’m your Father and I expect you to treat me with a modicum of--”

“If you’re about to say respect,” Klaus had seethed, face turning red from the sheer amount of rage he was housing in his shaking, thin body. “Then I’m going to stop you right there. I lost respect for you the moment you first told us to call you sir. I lost respect for when you threw Diego’s sippy cup out of the window, claiming it was too childish and that he shouldn’t rely on it. I lost respect for you when you made Five teleport from room to room to room, working himself to the point of exhaustion, just to see how much he could take, to satisfy that disgusting curiosity you’ve always had. You don’t /deserve/ respect, you colossal piece of shit.”

His father hadn't budged at first but after a brief and graphic spiel in which Klaus threatened to feed Sir Reginald Hargreeves his own left foot with a side of refried beans or give him a front row seat and one way ticket to the tragedy of Roanoke, he backed down considerably. The children would stay in the house with Pogo and Grace and Klaus would take over all parental duties. Reginald would observe from afar and, if he ever stepped out of line, would be staying at one of his other various estates, fuck you very much.

The first of those duties was to enroll them all in school -- a /real/ school, not one of those stupid little homeschooling courses his father subjected them to, no thank you. 

Luther, Klaus' biggest and burliest. The kid could carry half of the cheerleading squad on his shoulders and lift a grown-ass man as easy as pie. But he was awkward, lumbered around and bumped into things constantly, and was just as horribly and terribly socially inept as he'd been in his thirties. The kid would turn into a tomato if a girl even looked in his direction, let alone tried to flirt, so Klaus didn't know how in the hell he was going to survive. Joining the football team had been Luther's choice, though there was some not-so-subtle prompting from the coach when he practically begged him to come to tryouts. He'd walked into the gym one day to see Coach Clooney, a normally stoic and vicious man, on his knees -- he almost thought that Luther was going to say know but, hey, the kid was full of surprises. Klaus, in an attempt to be a supportive pseudo-parent, memorized pretty much every position and play in the book and, though he still thought his brother to be a big stupid lug, as siblings do, he never missed a single game.

"Why /did/ you join the football team, Luther?" Klaus had asked one day in the garden. "I thought you didn't like sports all that much?"

Luther stared off into the distance, hunched over and gripping onto the edge of the stone bench with as much gentleness as he could muster -- he'd been getting much better with control.

"Because I have a specific job to do, I think. I have a place and something to accomplish that isn't a mission."

It was a start, even if it was a baby step.

Diego was an entirely different monster. With his penchant for knives and overwhelming adoration for his mother Klaus had to tiptoe around with an unfamiliar softness and gentle touch. There was more than one occasion that he listed Grace on forms as a co-parent, and several times that he showed up with her to conferences -- the most memorable being the time he showed up in full drag, Grace on his arm, and lay a big, lipstick laden kiss on the woman's cheek halfway through. Diego showed interest in boxing, just like he had as an adult, but he also showed an interest in fencing. Klaus and Grace tag-teamed on that one, gently convincing their stuttering charge that while his knives were indeed badass, fencing was entirely respectable and that it would be very hard to take a man with a sword as anything but a serious competitor. Klaus spent night after night sparring with him in one of the mansions many courtyards, bruises blossoming across his chest and back -- fighting was a welcome release when he got the itch to relapse and it was hard to be very angry after one fought through an argument. He flaunted each cut and scrape proudly whenever he wore something revealing, claiming that an angel had knocked some sense into him. 

Diego thought it was hilarious.

Allison, his darling sister, was more subdued than she'd been in adulthood. She watched babies with a keen eye, sadness bubbling up whenever she lingered too long on a memory. Klaus knew that she saw Claire in every little girl they passed, every child she saw. He also knew that he couldn’t fill the void left behind by her biological child, no matter how hard he tried. But he could distract her. With a few carefully placed nudges and a blessing he managed to get her back into acting -- it was a smaller stage and she had all of the benefits of a middle school drama class this time around, but it was something that was familiar to her. He wasn't there for every rehearsal but he never missed a single play, not once. 

Ben and Five were close, maybe more so than they were the first time around, and they spent most of their time together poring over math textbooks or getting into heated debates about books they'd read -- Ben, for instance, thought that Lord of the Rings was splendid while Five would rather shove a copy of each book down the garbage disposal and read Ender's Game for the thirty-second consecutive time. They slept in the same room most of the time, competed in chess tournaments, the whole nine yards. Klaus adored the little nerds with all of his heart but he could never understand a lick of what they were saying; he could barely count to seven for Christ's sake. But he would show up to every chess game and every math tournament armed to the teeth with pom poms, even if Five cringed and Ben lost his shit giggling, and he would sit there as long as it took. 

Vanya, the unofficial youngest, flourished in her own ways. She wasn’t on a team, wasn’t in any clubs or in orchestra, nothing like that. She liked to practice violin in her own time like always and would find a secluded spot of the manor to attempt each individual part of Tchaikovsky’s Overture until she grew tired, and Klaus would just sit on the floor and listen. That’s all she needed, really, was a bit of love and attention. Nothing too overbearing, just a silent and subtle nudge every now and then to remind her that she was loved. Klaus could do that -- he could make her favorite meals, bring her sheet music, attempt a frankly awful rendition of one of her songs on the harmonica, discuss in detail the difference between a manx and a japanese bobtail -- that was all a walk in the park after what they’d been through. 

Klaus himself was surprisingly okay. He itched for a fix late at night, looked a little too longingly at the liquor cabinet when things got bad, but he was getting better with every day. He was a man with a purpose and a house full of people to keep safe, he was a man filled with more love than he could possibly give, and he was proud of each and every one of those kids. As adults they’d looked after him, at least tried to, but he’d never made it easy. He’d fought and bit and spat just for an inch of space, tried to destroy himself to make the ghosts go away for a measly moment, but he understood that their dysfunction was a team effort, even if it sucked gorilla dong. No-one in their family asked for help, nor did they accept it when it was given, but Klaus was going to be damned if that would fly when they had a second chance. 

It shocked him how easy it was to care for everyone, like /really/ care for them, how little effort it took to give them what they needed all along, and Klaus often found himself nauseous at the thought of how awful Reginald Hargreeves was as a father. But this isn’t about Reginald, and this isn’t about his gross negligence.

This is the story of how Klaus Hargreeves single-handedly fixed his brothers and sisters, and found a new life for himself in the process.


	2. Six Kids And A Fuckton Of Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having kids takes a lot of paperwork, Klaus finds out at the end of the summer, and it's a lot harder than it looks to register six kids for school.
> 
> In which Klaus has the warm fuzzies, is intimidated by Miss. Whitmore, and reveals a bit more about his personal life than he ought to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: High and Dry by Radiohead
> 
> I suddenly want a few kids but uhh that's gonna wait until I'm in my forties or something, eccentric parenting can wait until later in life

“Mr. Hargreeves, I’m going to have to ask you to take your feet off of that.”

“Please don’t call me that -- Klaus is fine.”

“Okay. /Klaus/. Can you please take your feet off of my desk?”

“Oh! Right, sorry.”

Klaus swung his legs off of the desk -- he thought it was mahogany or something but he couldn’t be sure -- bare feet skimming the grey carpet beneath his chair. He was sitting in the office of a seemingly nice lady named Miss. Whitmore. She was in her thirties or forties, tall, blonde hair tied up in a bun and dark red glasses perched on the tip of her nose, very librarian-esque. 

“How old are you, Mr. Hargreeves?”

Ugh, there it was again. Klaus shuddered at the formality, picturing himself in a monocle and a smart suit instead of the ratty fur coat and sparkly skirt he was donning. It was an absolute disgrace. Klaus’ leg bounced up and down, his teeth breaking his thumbnail into pieces as he peered up at the woman he was beginning to find a little too intimidating and serious for his tastes.

“Uh, almost thirty.”

“What day and year were you born?”

He had to do the math, pinching the bridge of his nose. Two-thousand and three minus thirty, carry the one, yadda-yadda.

“October 1st, 1973.”

“That was just after the Vietnam War ended, wasn’t it?”

Klaus flinched, though he was sure it went unnoticed by Miss. Whitmore as she was busy poring over paperwork and an ancient dial-up computer. He really wished she wouldn’t try making small-talk -- he was antsy enough as it was and he just wanted to get the paperwork over with so he could go home to his grumpy, disheveled siblings, and watch non-stop reruns of I Love Lucy. 

“I believe so, yes.”

“How many children do you have?”

“Six. Two girls, four boys.”

Miss. Whitmore’s typing stopped abruptly and Klaus glanced up from his hands to see her looking over her glasses at him. He couldn’t tell if she was in some weird form of shock or if she was just being completely and utterly judgmental -- he didn’t really care, honestly. 

“That’s a lot of children for someone your age, Mr. Hargreeves.”

“They’re adopted, if that makes it any better.”

She huffed out a noise that sounded like she wanted to say something else, but she ultimately shook her head and continued typing. Maybe she thought he was trying to prank her, who knew.

“What are their names and ages?”

“Well, they were all born on the same day -- October 1st, 1989. Their names are Luther, Diego, Allison, Five, Benjamin, and Vanya.”

“Five?”

“Their grandfather named him,” he dismissed, flapping a tattooed hand in an attempt to scoot past the topic. “He’s an eccentric, what can I say.”

The lady inhaled deeply, counting to ten Klaus imagined, and clasped her neatly manicured claws in front of her.

“Do you have the children with you?”

“Not today, no, but I do have their legal documents, pictures, all that jazz.”

“Wonderful,” she said, in a tone that said that it was, in fact, the opposite of wonderful. “If you would please pull them out?”

Klaus had been privately dreading this moment -- not because he was worried about Miss. Whitmore’s opinion, but more because he wasn’t looking forward to the copious amounts of paperwork and the inevitable carpal tunnel he was going to develop as a result of signing things. He slunk over to the duffel bag he’d hijacked from Diego and rummaged around for a few more seconds than was necessary, producing a large dossier that weighed about as much as a ton of bricks, or one of the library’s clunky and outdated computers. Miss. Whitmore -- Janine, as the placard on her desk stated proudly -- stared down at the pile of papers with a mixture of horror and concerned interest.

“Some of that’s, uh, criminal records and shit, you can just ignore those.”

“Criminal records?” she asked, incredulous. “That’s going to cause some--”

“Relax, relax, they’re not mine.”

He held up his palms in surrender, hoping to placate the woman who would most likely stab him with a ballpoint pen if he pulled any shit. She didn’t seem to relax any, just quirked a perfectly filled in eyebrow and pursed her lips.

“Who do they belong to, then?”

“They’re mostly Five’s, I think,” he muttered after grabbing a report at random, scanning the page and reminiscing on the time that his brother not-so-politely accosted a guard at the mall. “I’m sure Diego has one or two in there somewhere, he’s a handful.”

From the twitch in Janine’s eye, Klaus figured that his explanation hadn’t helped much. Nonetheless she reached out with those dark red, dagger-esque nails, and flipped through one of the folders. A quick glance at the folder told him that it was Allison’s -- he had each folder color coded, labeled, in order of number, and could pick out each one easy as a breeze. Luther’s was blue with a large number one and a doodled moon on the cover, Diego’s was grey with a carefully swirled two and a knife in the corner. The rest continued on in a similar fashion: green with a camera, red with a math formula, orange with an octopus, and hot pink with a painstakingly accurate violin that Klaus had drawn one sleepless night away from relapse. 

“Allison Marie Hargreeves,” she read. “Born 1989, adopted by Klaus Hargreeves and Grace Androga-Hargreeves in 2002. Is that your wife?”

“Oh, no, we’re not married. I, uh, I’m not interested in that type of thing.”

“Marriage?”

“Women.”

Well, that was partially a lie. Klaus was interested in women and had dated, or bedded, really, quite a few in his thirty years of existence. But as it stood he wasn’t looking for anyone, man or woman, and with Dave fresh in his memory he wasn’t sure if he could look at anyone that way again. The look on Janine’s face was completely worth the slip of his tongue and Klaus was concerned that her eyebrows would disappear into her hairline, never to return. Leave it to time travel to make a gay, or pansexual, man a spectacle again. 

“/Oh/, oh, I see,” she stuttered out. “We don’t have any problems with that, of course, it shouldn’t -- ahem -- it shouldn’t be an issue.”

Klaus swallowed the hysterical giggle that was threatening to bubble up. He was starting to consider, very seriously, the option of just homeschooling the gaggle of kids because he couldn’t see how this could be worth it. 

“Janine, you’re keeping me from pizza night,” he said instead, deadpan. “Five gets very touchy when he doesn’t get his pizza on time, you know, he’s like a teenage piranha but with access to thumbtacks.”

“Oh, right, sorry, uh, I’ll need you to sign here?”

The afternoon continued on in a similar fashion, Klaus signing things every two seconds, and Janine stuttering her way through the process in an attempt not to embarrass herself -- Klaus wasn’t easily offended but he did find her struggle rather amusing. He was grateful for the awkward strain because it made things feel less frightening, less strenuous. The mindless interaction gave him time to reflect on the past summer, the screaming and yelling, the struggle to reintegrate, and Klaus wondered exactly when he started to be more than a brother to the six kids he was trying so hard to protect.

The disappointed looks he’d gotten as a druggie had morphed into late nights, rubbing backs whenever one of them was homesick or fighting off nightmares, had turned into making sandwich abominations at two in the morning and watching shit reality television while trying to understand theoretical physics. He figured the shift had happened between a nasty argument between him and the much smaller Luther, and the morning after in which he’d woken up on the couch with a crick in the neck and all of his siblings surrounding him, dead to the world. They hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep -- he’d been up late thinking and ignoring the liquor cabinet -- but each and every one of them was in contact with him one way or another. 

Allison was pressed up against his left shoulder, drooling, Diego was stretched across her lap with his head shoved into Klaus’ sternum, Ben was curled up in the older man’s lap with a fistful of his shirt in hand. On his other side Vanya was under his arm and Luther was stretched out enough for his feet to knock against Klaus’ thigh. At first he’d thought that Five was in his room, mostly because he didn’t seem like the cuddling type, but when he looked down he saw the smaller boy curled around his legs, using Dolores as a makeshift pillow.

Luther had gone on about how it wasn’t fair for Klaus of all people to be the one still in his adult body, how it should have been someone more responsible, but looking back he realized something. He was the best possible person, apart from their mother herself, who could have taken over and cared for the kids, even with his past. 

Luther wasn’t ready to care for people, never had been if his way of leading the team was any indication. Diego was too busy trying to be number one that he wouldn’t necessarily know how to handle the touchy feely stuff. Allison was mourning, Five was Five. Ben was just happy to be alive and, while Vanya would have made a wonderful parent in Klaus’ opinion, she was the one they were there to fix. That left Klaus, the man who’d seen all these kids at their worst and still loved them unconditionally, even if he didn’t get anything in return. He was the one who woke up early to cook breakfast, who carried half-asleep teenagers to bed when it was too late at night, who played with their hair and hummed them to sleep on bad nights.

And that was what a father was supposed to do, he’d realized -- if Sir Reginald Hargreeves wasn’t going to step up to the plate and be a decent parent, Klaus was going to be the best damned one he could possibly be. That’s what those kids deserved.

Incidentally it was also what Klaus needed.


	3. Our Dysfunctional Brother, The Functional Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of school is always stressful -- even if you're a thirty year old man in a kid's body. 
> 
> In which Diego can't sleep, a sleep-deprived Klaus has a plan, and Patti breaks Luther's brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Pretty Girl by Clairo
> 
> Morticia Addams can step on me and I highkey head-canon that Morticia and Gomez have a girlfriend and that they love her very much

“God, we’re like the Addams family but if they were dysfunctional,” Diego thought aloud.

He looked ridiculously tiny in his teenage body and most of the others dwarfed over him. He hadn’t gotten his final growth-spurt until he was in his twenties, which was a fact that Luther in particular loved to lord over him.

“The Addamses are uncharacteristically functional, I don’t think they should be included in the average due to their status as an outlier. No-one has that level of communication -- no-one.”

The statement sounded typical of something Five would say, but it came from Klaus who was seated on the breakfast table, one of his father’s cigars in between his fingers. He might have given up drugs and alcohol but they could pry his cigarettes out of his cold, dead fingers. The two were alone in the kitchen and, aside from the occasional bustling of their mother, the house was eerily silent. It was nearing four in the morning and neither of them could sleep -- convening in the kitchen felt natural.

“Five would be Wednesday -- I swear he has wet dreams about guillotines.”

“Would that make me Morticia?”

“Only if you put on the heels and slap on some of mom’s lipstick.”

Klaus wrinkled his nose, taking offense. Kohl rimmed his eyes and Diego could clearly see black on his fingertips from when he'd rubbed them in his exhausted state. He had a habit of messing up his makeup absentmindedly, like he expected the color to be part of his skin, not a thin layer of eye-shadow or lipstick. The makeup was very much a part of him, whether his father approved or not.

“I have my own lipstick, thank you very much.”

“Luther would be Lurch, no doubt about it.”

“God, /yes/. I vote we get him to say the line next time we play charades.”

“We don't play charades, Klaus.”

Klaus wrinkled his nose, glanced down at the cup of coffee, laden with milk and creamer, in his lap, and sniffed indignantly.

“Well, we should -- it's a crucial part of the bonding process.”

Diego wondered just how much of the intelligent shit, the advice and wisdom they'd attributed to Ben when they couldn't see him, really came from Klaus. There was the occasional math related comment -- that was Ben’s realm of expertise -- but when it came to people and homemaking a lot of it was just Klaus. He was a lot more serious and thoughtful than his siblings gave him credit for, which is why it seemed so unusual when Klaus asked a question.

“Are you going to be okay, going off to school today?”

There was no trace of mockery, just a subtle concern.

“I sh-should be fine, Klaus. I'm probably the best prepared of our socially maladjusted siblings.”

Cue the knowing look. Klaus didn't push any further, though, he knew better than that. Instead he clambered down from the table, careful not to give Diego an eyeful of jewels, and smoothed his skirt down when his bare feet touched the floor. Diego expected him to leave but was greeted by an open palm, the one that said goodbye, and an expectant brother attached to the other end. He sighed and slid his much-smaller hand into Klaus’ much-bigger one, being easily hauled up and to his feet. He was easy enough to steer through the house and he could feel the occasional brush of Klaus’ skirt against his legs. 

“What are we doing?”

“It’s early enough in the day that I,” he punctuated by turning a corner, the last word pitching higher than the rest. “Have decided to pretty myself up before being seen by our adoring public. And you, mein Shatz, are going to help me.”

He found himself being ushered into his older brother’s room. It was the same as it’d always been -- markings on the wall, clothing scattered everywhere, lewd posters spread across the walls. There were the subtle differences that came with Klaus’ adulthood, but everything was more or less the same. The door swung closed behind them and he caught one last glimpse of the darkened hall. The room itself was lit by the soft glow of a nightlight and the few candles lit around the windowsills, but it was still overwhelmingly dark. The darkness suited the room and, somehow, was comforting to the smaller boy. 

From the beautiful, silky black wig he saw in the corner, Diego got the impression that they were going to school accompanied by someone other than Klaus Hargreeves. Their brother had always pushed the gender boundaries, no surprises there, but they’d never seen him in anything other than a skirt and some makeup. Diego was practically buzzing with the excitement of being the first one to see him like that -- there’d always an unspoken trust between the two but this was new territory and Klaus had just handed Diego the keys. The bag of lipsticks rattled in Klaus’ hand, he was searching for a specific shade of red, and he gnawed at his lip.

“Wait, are you-- do you--,” Diego fumbled, feeling like a fish out of water. “What do you want to be called?”

Klaus, after recovering from the slight shock of being easily accepted, sent him a beautiful, sunny smile.

And so an hour or three later, when his siblings were bustling to get ready for the day, or in some cases stumbling, Diego jittered with excitement and pride. Ben nearly face-planted in his hurry to get down the stairs and Luther -- well, Luther was never the graceful one in the family. He lumbered around and bumped into things constantly, especially doorways and his siblings. Diego hadn’t slept a wink that night and thus was dressed and ready to go long before his brothers and sisters. He was sitting on the banister, much to the chagrin of Allison, and stared down at the hurried, crazed attempts at getting organized. 

“Where’s Klaus?” Luther asked tentatively from the foot of the stairs, not finding their brother anywhere. “He has to drive us to -- drive us to school.”

“She’s on her way now, I think, s-she just had to p-put some final touches on her outfit.”

“She?”

Diego’s expression screamed of mischief, like he was proud to know something Luther didn’t. He decided to play with him, furrowing his eyebrows and looking for all the world like his highest ranking brother lost his mind. 

“What do you mean?”

“You said she, not he. Twice.”

“Why would I say he?” Diego pouted, hands clutching the banister. “She might get upset if you call her that, you know.”

As if on cue the sound of heels clicked closer. Luther expected their blonde mother, the perfect picture of a retro housewife to round the corner and he smirked, waiting for Diego to inevitably be told off. Instead he heard an unfamiliar, strangely feminine voice that didn’t belong to their mother, didn’t belong to anyone he knew. He could see sleek black hair through the gaps of the stairwell. 

“Diego, darling, stop torturing your brother, yeah?”

“Sure thing,” he snickered, turning around and dismounting the banister with an oiled grace and ease. He saw Luther mouth something out of the corner of his eye. 

Klaus, or Patti, as they’d discussed earlier, was dressed to the nines in a soft, black dress that fit his form and fell to the middle of his shin. Blood red pumps added to his height, his usual six-foot-something turning into a near Luther-esque stature. Red lipstick, red heels, red stiletto nails. And he replaced that one little word with /she/. She had long black hair that came down to her waist, but it was tied up into a high ponytail, joined by a playful smile, and a confidence that easily translate to the new appearance. The hello and goodbye still stood proud against her tanned-yet-sickly skin, but the flowy long sleeves covered up everything else. She did look somewhat like Morticia, but she was different. Gentler, more curves and less sharp edges, more normal and subdued. Sure, she could put on the charm and talk a man to the edge of the world and back, but she didn’t find it necessary. 

It wasn’t addressed until everyone was piled into the van, bags and notebooks ready to go. 

“So you-- what are you--?” Luther swallowed thickly, trying to process everything. “Are you, uh, a woman? In a man’s body? Or is this just. Drag?”

“I’m whatever I damn-well please, brother mine,” she crooned, glancing into the rear-view as she backed the vehicle out of the driveway. Grace sat primly in the passenger’s seat, a matching lipstick smile on her gentle features. “And right now I am planning on being early, if that’s alright with you.”

The reactions were mixed. Vanya, ever-so-pleased and unsurprised, Ben, not phased in the slightest. Five, like always, didn’t care if it didn’t affect the world’s end or threaten the solidity of the family, and Allison didn’t bat an eye. Luther was confused, affronted, even, and Diego was the cat that got the cream. The lovely Grace didn’t mind and, on the way to the car, had even commented on how splendid Patti’s eye-shadow was. They had plans to do each-other's makeup on one of the coming school-days. 

Patti caught another glimpse of Luther’s gobsmacked face and rolled her eyes.

“Calm down, will you? You didn’t lose your brother, he’s just,” she paused and inhaled, flapping a hand. “Taking a nap, or something. He’ll be back before you know it and then you’ll want him gone again.”

She snickered at the thought, reveling in the indignant squeak that came from Luther, and reached back with a free arm to ruffle his hair. Ben yelled out something about watching the road, reminding her to keep the car from swerving, and she stared ahead with her hands firmly on the wheel.

“See? Things aren’t so different,” she crooned. “You just listen to your Auntie Patti and everything will be just fine.”

More than anything, Patti was a distraction. She distracted Klaus from the screaming in his head, distracted Luther long enough to keep him from saying stupid shit to his siblings, and distracted Diego from the strain of the first day of school. His stutter was barely noticeable, not that it would bother anyone in the family, and he was noticeably happier and more relaxed. Patti gave him something to focus on other than the stress and the stuttering. And that was the plan all along -- even if Klaus found that he felt right as both himself /and/ as Patti.


	4. Fuck You, Abacus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Math isn't Klaus' strong-suit and, as it turns out, it isn't Diego's either. Homework in general is pointless, they decide.
> 
> In which Klaus makes a few phone calls, Allison is still pissed at Luther, and Five is a softie behind all the margaritas and intrigue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: When I Was Done Dying by Dan Deacon
> 
> I had a raging headache while writing most of this so, I'm super sorry if it's not good?? I tried though, oof

Homework is for the birds, according to each and every one of the Hargreeves siblings. That included Klaus who, after two hours of trying to help Diego with his math homework, was an inch and a half away from lighting the thing on fire. He refrained, thankfully, and meandered over to the kitchen instead, searching for something caffeinated or dripping with nicotine, if all went well. As it turned out, Five had had the same idea and was sitting on the counter, knees to chest, gazing at the coffee carafe as it slowly dripped its way to full. Klaus could sympathise. 

“What class was it?” Klaus asked, hoisting himself onto the other side of the counter.

“History,” Five grumbled around his hand. “How is it that none of the shit they write in textbooks is right? Honestly, it’s juvenile.”

Klaus nodded solemnly, watching a large glob of coffee slide down the side of the glass. He’d had the same issue when it came to the sixties and seventies -- none of the books had it right, none of them knew what actually happened, and all of them assumed far too much. A good chunk of them painted it like it was all sunshine and rainbows on the American side, and that they were barbaric and ruthless for no apparent reason. Klaus could tell them from experience that both sides got just as much as they gave, and that no-one was safe from the horrors of war. Not the Americans, not the Vietnamese, and certainly not the kids caught in the middle.

“History’s told by the victors,” he hummed out dismissively. “That’s what Gurney always says, anyway.”

Five muttered his agreement, perking up when the coffee-maker finally dinged and squirted out the last dregs of black liquid. There was no hesitation, no nothing, when he reached out to touch the hot glass -- the kid didn’t even flinch, which Klaus found to be mildly concerning. He swatted his brother’s hands away from the glass and hopped back onto the floor to get some mugs. 

“I’m not feeling this whole homework thing, if I’m being honest,” Klaus drawled. “Do you think we could get Pogo to do his /civic/ duty and help us out?”

“Pogo would rather be buried alive than help us, I’m sure.”

He wasn’t wrong. Pogo had become a lot more distant and reserved since their father left the estate -- Klaus would almost say he was /depressed/ if he didn’t know any better. Regardless, Pogo would be of little to no use when it came to homework, even if he was incredibly well-read for a chimpanzee. It was a shame he was so uptight, Klaus would have loved to spend more time with him. The monkey was more of a father than Sir Reginald ever was, and ever would be, so it made sense that the kids would be so fond of him and would vy for his attention and affection more than necessary. 

“It’s a shame, really, I was dying to see him lose his mind over the way they’re teaching math now,” he huffed. “Who, and I can’t stress this enough, uses algebra in their day to day lives? Not me, not the Pope, not fuckin’ -- Oprah Winfrey."

“Klaus, you were homeless for the majority of your adulthood.”

He shrugged, waving the statement off with a tattooed hand. 

“I would have been homeless with or without algebra, Five-O.”

Five averted his gaze, bumping shoulders with his brother, and poured two cups of coffee. That was the closest thing to affection he could muster whilst in the land of the living, breathing, /awake/ people, but it was enough for Klaus to get the sentiment. He accepted the mug of boiling hot coffee, a mug that said ‘#1 Virgin’ in pretty pink letters, and took an unnecessarily large gulp. They’d picked it up at the store as a gag-gift for Luther and, since he didn’t drink coffee very often, it made its rounds to the other siblings -- it was the funniest when Diego or Klaus drank out of it, if not only for the fact that they were absolutely /not/ on the virgin list. 

The coffee was super hot as it turned out and Klaus could feel the individual taste buds melting together into some sort of homogeneous, useless substance on the tip of his tongue. It was kind of pleasant, all things considered. Pleasant in the same way getting a tattoo or a piercing was exhilarating -- if you liked being stabbed, poked, prodded, and burned constantly.

“Back to the hell of homework?” he asked, stretching his arms up and above his head.

A wrinkled nose and a strangled groan later, they were seated back in the living room, poring over text-books and packets of paper. Klaus was back with Diego, trying to make sense of algebraic equations and formulas, Five was in the corner, reading the designated text on the renaissance. Allison was paired with Ben to hack away at biology and general science, and Luther was paired with Vanya, surprisingly, to work their way through English homework. Luther had always been good at big speeches and the like but when it came to writing things down, Vanya was the reigning queen. Even if the book she wrote drove a wedge between the family for a short time. The only problem was, Vanya didn’t really use much /imagination/ in her writing, and that was exactly what the essay needed. 

Klaus had absolutely no idea what the hell positive and negative numbers were supposed to accomplish, even with the incredibly helpful step-by-step guidebook in front of him, and judging by the grumbling and moaning over on the couch, Allison and Ben weren’t getting anywhere with science, either. Klaus ran an inky palm over his hand, huffed out a short disavowment of life, and made a decision. 

“Alright, kids, I have an idea,” he stated, lacking the chipper enthusiasm that would normally be partnered with those words. “We’re gonna switch partners. Sound good? Okay. Ben, you can help Diego with his math -- it’s those weird, imaginary numbers and shit that you like so much -- Allison, you help Luther with his essay, it needs a little pizzazz. Vanya, when they’re done you can proofread it and edit it, but for now you can be paired with Five, since you’ve always had that knack for history. 

“What are you gonna do?” Ben asked, sounding somewhat put-out that he wouldn’t be studying or working with them.

Klaus waved a newspaper in the air and flipped it open to the third page, large print denoting that janitors were very much in that week, and that there was a high demand for secretaries. There was even an opening for Griddy’s, just below one for substitute teachers in Camden Community, whatever that was. Secretaries, janitors, cooks, life-guards, you name it. If you could think of it, it was probably somewhere on the list. Ben watched the paper with unguarded interest, slowly putting the pieces together before Klaus answered.

“I, my lovely brother, am going to be looking at job openings,” he said sullenly. “I’ll be making a few phone-calls here, a few phone-calls there, nothing to fret over.”

Ben looked awfully pleased for someone who was about to do math, and Klaus rolled his eyes, flipping his brother the bird in a lazier fashion than normal. The other siblings were too absorbed in their new tasks to really notice the exchange, and Allison and Luther in particular were bickering under their breath about something menial, so Klaus wouldn’t be surprised if the job news came as a shock later down the road. Klaus was heavily considering calling up Griddy’s Donuts to see if he could land a job there -- his siblings would be ecstatic, and he was familiar enough with Agnes to be comfortable working with her. The woman was a saint and a sweetheart when they were kids the first time around.

“Honestly, how can you be so unimaginative, Luther,” Allison grumbled from the other side of the room. “And don’t you dare start about the moon, or so help me Principal Mangrove I will break your record player.”

They’d been bickering a lot following the events of the not-past, and Klaus found it easier to ignore with time. They would start up again the moment they got close to each other, and the other siblings would glance at each other, shrug, and continue on with their days. The healing process was going to be slow no matter what, it was best to just let things run their course. Vanya and Luther had made up over the tension filled and strenuous summer, but Allison wasn’t so ready to let go of the memory, and wasn’t ready to come to terms with the image of Vanya being locked away in a sound-proof cage thanks to their brother. Klaus couldn’t tell you when or if she would ever come around, but the more they argued the better things would get, he supposed. 

“Tell you what, it’s Friday -- if you guys get all of your homework done before, say, eight o’ clock, I’ll dig out the VHS and we can watch as many movies as we can before we drop. I’ll even throw in pizza and junk-food.”

Diego, whose “body was a temple” and all that, perked up at Klaus’ offer, and attacked the mathematical stuff with a new vigor. Boxer or no, pizza and junkfood was pizza and junkfood, and he thought he’d seen a copy of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl somewhere in the attic when they were getting re-situated into the house. Luther and Allison showed a reluctance to work together but, at the promise of food and television, pushed through and cooperated just enough to add a few paragraphs at a time to the essay. Vanya and Five were quietly conversing and supposedly being productive, which was the least surprising event of the day since they’d always worked well together and loved spending time together. 

Klaus made six or seven phone calls in the two hours it took them to finish up homework, several of which were total busts, but by the end of the night he was a newly employed man and each and every one of the siblings was piled onto the couch, eating pizza, and watching various iconic movies from their childhood contentedly.

And if Pogo and Grace snuck in to snap a picture after they’d all fallen asleep, no-one was to know.


	5. God Help Us All When The Full Moon Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's that time of month for the girls and Klaus is left alone in the pharmacy -- he doesn't find the guy there with him very charming.
> 
> WARNING: Talk about periods (if you don't want to hear about the different types of pads, health issues w/ the uterus, etcetera, I'd just go ahead and mosey on through, babs) and a guy being a dick about Klaus' gender and possibly being transphobic? I dunno man, dick dude is a dick dude and he says rude stuff, so be warned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Stop Thinking (About Me) by Alfie Templeman
> 
> Note: I'm not really good at writing more fast paced chapters?? But I tried my best and here we are--

Klaus considered himself a good brother, a decent person, and a mediocre pseudo-parent -- he could extinguish the dumpster-fires that followed his family around like stray kittens, he could stitch his siblings up and give them all the space they needed, he wasn’t too shabby at the parenting thing and was overall very well prepared to handle six super-powered ex-adults. One thing he was /not/ prepared to deal with, however, was the inevitability of two teenage girls dealing with the lovely “Red Death” as it were. Don’t get him wrong, he knew more than enough to handle the situation with ease, he could buy the pads and chocolate with no problem, but the onslaught of estrogen, anger, and pain was a bit out of left field.

Vanya, he quickly found out, dealt with adenomyosis -- a panicked trip to the doctor’s office and a late night spent with his nose in a book told him that adenomyosis was painful, involved a lot more blood than was apparently normal, and led to insane, excruciating cramping both during and outside of her week of hell. Grace, unfortunately, hadn’t been equipped to deal with any of the feminine issues, nor did she have much knowledge on them. One more thing to curse their father for, Klaus supposed. Regardless, Klaus kept a heating pad in every room, hot water bottles, and had Vanya’s medications and midol squirreled away for when they were needed. 

Allison was free of any uterine abnormalities, thankfully, but she did have the worst mood-swings out of the two. One minute she could be happy and carefree as can be, the next crying over the cute little lollipop that looked like a teddy-bear in the grocery store, and the moment after that, screaming at Diego for putting his foot a little too close to hers when there was ten feet in between them, give or take. She was the one they had to tiptoe around, but with a bit of chocolate and a lot of trash television, they were able to get by. Maybe Luther wasn’t so lucky most days, but that was between them.

So Klaus found himself in the pharmacy more often than not, perusing the aisles for the best selection of blood-catching devices. For Vanya, he figured the big, heavy duty type pads -- he’d done some research and found that the ones intended for night time use were the best -- but Vanya often went with him to the store and picked them out herself. Allison was, again, a different ballpark. As an adult she’d relied heavily on birth control and the like to keep her periods relatively light and painless, or so he’d heard, he didn’t know if that worked, and she was in no shape to get out of bed to go with them to the store. So they would pick up a generic brand, find a large stuffed animal, and hope that they could sneak them to her without being stabbed, maimed, or shot. 

One evening found Klaus alone in the pharmacy, Vanya being occupied with schoolwork and violin practice, with a large bag of pads and enough chocolate to feed a small country under each arm. Grace was, again, no help thanks to their father, so this left him to fend for himself, skirt, crop-top and all. It was hot, somewhere in the eighties or nineties thanks to the summer, so he was slowly but surely making his way to the back where they housed all of the ice-cream sandwiches and cones. If they had something dairy-free he could take something for Ben, but he’d always been fond of ice pops anyway. You could call them what you want -- freezy pops, ice candies, flavor ices -- but he’d stand his ground and continue to call them ice pops until the day he died. 

Of course, it was the moment that he found the selection of sweets that he’d been looking for that someone tapped his shoulder. It was a burly, grumpy looking guy somewhere around Klaus’ age, though Klaus had aged with considerably more grace, and he looked like he’d just been told the funniest joke in the world.

“Those for you?” grumpy-guy asked, gesturing to the pads under his left arm.

“Oh, yeah, those, I get some gnarly nosebleeds,” Klaus countered, looking back to the ice cream. “It gets all over the pillows and sheets, it’s a mess.”

“See, I think you’s one of those trans-whatevers.”

“Transvestite? Transgender? Trans-Siberian Orchestra?” Klaus offered helpfully.

“Yeah, those,” he nodded solemnly, gesturing to the skirt and crop-top as if that made his point and more valid. “I mean, look at you.”

“Right,” Klaus said slowly, reaching into the freezer, one leg kicking up behind him as he blindly felt around for something at the very bottom. “Does this conversation have a point, or are you just wasting my time?”

“My buddy over there was just wondering what’s under your skirt.”

Upon looking around Klaus didn’t see any ‘buddy’, or anyone who looked even remotely interested in their conversation. He did, however, see an elderly man perusing the magazines like his life depended on it, and a guy over near the beers giving them the occasional side eye. Klaus, clean shaven as he was, was very much dude-looking that particular day, and for once in his life wasn’t even wearing eyeliner -- he’d been in too much of a hurry to slap on any makeup, for that matter. He wondered if it was the skirt that was confusing the guy -- yeah, that might be it. 

“Well unless he wants to get his big hairy hands on whatever it is, I don’t see how it matters.”

Trying to slip past the guy was a failed endeavor and Klaus bumped into an outstretched arm with a groan of annoyance. God, all he wanted was to buy his shit and get out, was that so much to ask? He was really hoping that he wouldn’t have to channel army veteran mo-jo and kick this guys ass, especially since he was having trouble keeping his skirt up on his hips. Allison had picked it out for him in a size just slightly too big, in the name of fashion or something and while it was exceedingly comfortable, light and airy, it wasn’t fit for ass-kicking.

“Come on, at least tell me your name, I don’t bite,” the oh-so chivalrous guy crooned, switching tactics in an attempt to get what he wanted. Klaus didn’t know what his deal was, nor did he particularly /want/ to know, but the guy obviously wasn’t going to let up any time soon.

“It’s Fuch-Yu,” he said, sauntering over to the counter. It felt so strange to actually be paying for things after so long stealing, and he dumped the arms worth of food and supplies in front of the register. “Don’t you have better things to do, dude? Like, I dunno, waxing that hairy chest of yours? You’re keeping me from two angry teenage girls who needed chocolate and meds an hour ago.”

The guy reached out and grabbed Klaus’ wrist, trying to stop him from paying, moving, who knew. Klaus stopped in his tracks long enough to hand the poor kid behind the register his sunglasses, spin around, and deck the guy, who he’d dubbed Joe, straight in the kisser. That only served to make the guy angry, apparently. A large and steroid filled fist swung out to smack Klaus in the side of the head -- or it would have if he hadn’t ducked downward -- and Klaus resorted to taking off one of his gargantuan platform stilettos and holding it up threateningly. 

“Listen, buddy, if you make my ice-cream melt I swear I will end you, you got that?”

Joe took another step forward and Klaus waved the shoe, grunting out a noise similar to the one you would make if you saw your cat trying to eat something they shouldn’t. The cashier made a strangled noise from behind them. The kid shakily pointed out a surveillance camera trained on the pair, bless him, and the creepy guy backed down pretty quickly after that. Klaus threw his shoe at him when he was on his way out, and turned back to the counter to pay. He plucked his sunglasses back from the cashier’s fingers and placed them atop his head triumphantly, putting getting his shoe back on the bottom of his to-do list, he could get it when he left.

“W-will that be cash, debit or credit?”

“Cash,” Klaus chirped, hazarding a glance at the back wall. “And can you grab me a pack of smokes? It doesn’t matter what kind, I’m gonna hide them in my glove box anyway.”

The kid, Eddie his name tag said, seemed to relax significantly at the realization that Klaus was so calm, and did as was asked. Relaxed enough to make small-talk, apparently. If he had to hazard a guess, Klaus would say that he was twenty-two, twenty-three. God, did he look so small at that age?

“Does the missus not like it when you smoke?”

“Come again?” Klaus asked dumbly. He tucked the pack of cigarettes into the bag he’d been handed.

“Your girlfriend? Or uh, boyfriend, if you’re into that sort of thing, I mean it’s fine if you are, I just assumed since you said you had kids that you would be married or have a girlfriend, but I mean there’s always adoption so I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner--”

“Relax, kid,” he wheezed out, trying not to laugh with what he assumed to be roughly the same amount of determination it would take for an ant to successfully carry a house. “There’s no missus, or mister. Just six kids and one disapproving set of parents who love to jack my cigarettes whenever they find them.”

It was true -- Grace was programmed to dispose of cigars, cigarettes, weed, the whole nine yards, and Pogo was simply adverse to the idea of Klaus smoking. Far be it from them to stop him, though, for he was dedicated, wily, and was not above lighting one up on the roof of the manor if that was what it took.

“Well I think that’s, uh, really cool of you, sir. To have six kids all by yourself.”

Klaus smiled, sincerely and happily. Though Eddie didn’t exactly grasp what their home-life was like, the sentiment was sweet and, in some vague and roundabout way, somewhat applicable to the Hargreeves’ situation. He’d given Luther the boot from the leader position and was acting as something like a wine-aunt to his siblings, and at some times their parent, but that was mostly just for the paperwork as far as they were concerned. 

“Thanks, kid,” he said once he finished paying. “And you can call me Klaus, I’m not old enough for that ‘sir’ shit.”

He made it all the way down the street before he realized that he’d forgotten his shoe.


	6. I Doth Decree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rules, rules, rules. Sometimes they do come in handy.
> 
> AKA: Klaus takes his parenting a step further and, surprisingly, is right more often than the siblings give him credit for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber
> 
> Sorry I'm so late! The battery in my laptop lowkey exploded and I had to get it replaced!

While Klaus prided himself in being the best fake parent he could possibly be, there were problems within the household. Five stayed up far beyond the recommended times and drank like a man starved for vodka, Allison resorted to hitting to get her points across, and Diego left holes in the upholstery wherever he went -- they’d never had the proper raising experience and, upon the loss of their overbearing adoptive father, they decided that the house and all of its inhabitants could effectively go to hell. Especially the ones that sympathized with their legal parent. While Klaus would have agreed with this sentiment, hell he might have even encouraged it, when high, he was blindingly sober and vividly aware of everything that occurred in the manor. 

And so he instated a set of rules. He didn’t want to be the bad guy, didn’t want to put anybody out, as it were, but the coping mechanisms of his brothers and sisters didn’t exactly strike him as healthy. None of them dealt with their trauma in a way that was anything less than destructive, either to themselves or others, and thus Klaus determined that the best thing for his siblings was a stronger hand and a softer touch. Where Sir Reginald had used violence, Klaus would use menial punishments -- where Pogo used silence, Klaus would use stern, yet gentle words. Klaus wanted his siblings to /want/ to be, and to get, better. He only wished someone had done the same for him when he was in the sweet embrace of cocaine, weed, and whatever other drugs he could get his spindly hands on. But Diego at least tried, and Klaus was determined to do the same for him. 

The first rule was the simplest. It came directly after Diego gifted Luther a new scar, glittering red with blood against the freshly human shoulder blade of the blond boy. They’d gotten into an argument about something, supposedly about their father or something of that sort, and without thinking Diego sent a knife soaring across the room. It sliced into Luther’s shoulder, curved, and nearly impaled itself in Ben’s hand next to the light switch. It was Vanya who told Klaus of that event. The whole room had gone silent when Klaus stepped in -- they’d come to respect him more since he’d gotten sober and, for all intents and purposes, he had ten more months of wisdom than any one of the brothers and sisters, excepting Five. 

“We fight with words, not fists: no biting, scratching, hitting, or maiming,” he’d declared, writing in permanent marker on the fridge. His writing was sharp and in all capital letters, his words accompanied by the letter one on the far left. 

Klaus thought it appropriate that the first rule was the result of Luther and Diego, who had always been fighting for first place, for the thrill of acceptance that came with being number one. The punishment for breaking the rule was to spend the night with one another. They would sleep, either in the same bed or just in the same room, and in the event that they couldn’t put aside their differences long enough to sleep, they would be told to spar until they were too tired to fight with each other anymore. Luther was strong but he lacked the stamina to keep up with his agile brother, and Diego lacked the ability to think straight in a fight. He relied more on emotion than logic, which started as many fights as it ended. 

The second rule was one that none of the siblings expected, especially from Klaus. It came after a particularly grueling mission in which Klaus came away with bruises, Luther came away with a gnarly stab wound, and the rest of the siblings were simply too exhausted to function, let alone do anything substantial when it came to school-work. The following afternoon Klaus received a nasty letter from one of the teachers at their middle-school, complaining about their tired state and writing insistently, with three underlines, that they’d gone to school without any of their homework completed. Not even Five, who had come away with the fewest scrapes and bruises, even ventured into the territory of mathematics that night, leaving every page of homework blank and empty.

“Homework before missions,” Klaus stated firmly, glaring at each and every one of his siblings in turn. “We’re here to fix the future and that starts with your schooling. Missions can wait until some other time.”

Luther had objected to that, asking his brother why they had to abstain from saving people and asking who would rescue people in their place. The answer was simple -- the police would, and always had, managed the things the children interfered in, in a much cleaner and simpler manner. There would be fewer injured hostages, fewer cocky kids out on the field, and all around less casualties than there ever had been with their father at the helm. Klaus counted that as a win.

“The police have guns and training, mi hermano,” he crowed as he dodged out of the way of a stainless steel fork Luther’d chucked in his direction. “They’re more equipped to handle these things than we ever were, don’t you agree?”

He didn’t agree, but seeing as Klaus had Pogo, Grace, and most of his siblings on his side, Luther was in no position to turn the tables in his favor. There was nothing to stop him from grumbling and griping his way through dinner, however, and the meal was anything but comfortable. Thankfully Diego was sitting far enough away that he couldn’t reach Luther and strangle him, which was a tiny victory and a blessing if there ever was one.

The third rule was more common sense than anything. It came after Allison and Vanya traversed into the wilderness of New Jersey, unsupervised and unrestrained, without leaving a note or a message to tell their brother they’d be gone -- he found out on his own after scouring the mansion for any trace of them, finding nothing, and panickedly asking the ghosts around him if they knew where his sisters had gone, only to find that they were just as clueless as he was. The consensus was that no-one knew where they were and Klaus was two centimeters away from dialing the police and leaving a frantic description of the two girls when they came joyously barreling into the foyer with wide smiles and bags of what seemed to be junk food.

They hadn’t been expecting the shouting, that much was for sure, and Klaus himself was surprised that his voice could get so loud. He’d never tried raising it and preferred to stay unnoticed, so imagine his surprise when his voice boomed in a manner not unlike his father’s, leaving the impression of a scraping chalkboard in the back of his mind. The fear and panic quickly turned into annoyance, then anger, then exhaustion, and finally acceptance all in the span of a few moments.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was?” he asked on an exhale, the anger finally leaving him. “How afraid I was that you’d gotten hurt, or worse, killed? You’re children now! You can’t go running off to god-knows-where without letting me know, or telling somebody!”

He’d been shaking like a god-damned leaf in California, teeth almost chattering with how violently intense his emotions were. The family meeting had yet to be called, but the siblings slowly began to trickle towards the source of the commotion, each watching the exchange with mixed expressions. Five looked disturbed and couldn’t take his eyes off of their bigger brother’s face. Ben had flinched when the yelling first began and Klaus felt the churning of guilt in his stomach, settling sourly when the anger dissipated. He could only hope that his siblings knew that he would never lay a hand on them, and sure as hell never hurt them.

“What would I have done if we lost you or if you showed up dead? How could I have lived with seeing you two like that?”

The family all agreed on that rule, deciding that there was no harm in being in the know -- especially when it could mean the difference between someone’s safety and them being put into danger. They were a family, adopted and messy as that was, and families stuck by each other and kept each other safe. Not only that, but the implication that their ghosts would haunt Klaus for the rest of his life was more than enough incentive to be as safe as they could possibly get.

The final rule came after Klaus stumbled across Five, curled up in a ball at the foot of his bed and snuffling quietly into his pillow. It was an unusual sight, perhaps more so than Klaus yelling the week prior, but his younger brother crying into his pillow was unexpected and, as far as Klaus was concerned, unacceptable. Not that the emotion was unacceptable, of course not, but the fact that Five tried to even his breathing and pretend that nothing had happened, that he didn’t cry because he wasn’t supposed to, was a notion that Klaus wanted to crush under his boots and grind into fairy dust. It was a remnant of their father’s harsh upbringing and, as the replacement for that man, Klaus decided to do something about it.

“It’s okay, you know,” he’d said, quiet as a mouse from the doorway. “You can cry -- I think we have more than enough trauma to make that excusable.”

Five hadn’t said anything. He just clenched his tiny little fists, took a shuddering breath, and in an odd display of vulnerability he opened his arms to his brother, making the smallest grabbing motion. It was then, with an armful of his little brother and a soaking wet shoulder, that Klaus came up with the final rule. The rule was, to Klaus at the very least, the most important rule of them all. 

“Don’t be afraid to cry or scream at somebody,” he’d said the morning after -- Five grimaced but was noticeably more affectionate towards his brother, going to far as to lean his cheek against the other man’s shoulder. “Any and all emotions you feel are valid, and I want you to show them.”

The rules were nothing like his father’s -- even the punishments were far less severe -- and the siblings all agreed, some more than others, that they didn’t mind the new set of rules. Even if it meant some embarrassment on their part.


End file.
